FEATURE: EDGE
ZEDEDA Survey findings confirm edge AI is no longer just a future consideration but an essential component of digital transformation strategies.
The survey of 301 US CIOs found that 30 % of organizations have fully deployed AI at the edge, 22 % are actively in production with limited deployment and 34 % are testing with plans to deploy within the next 24 months. This widespread adoption spans industries, with retail( 50 %) and manufacturing( 40 %) leading in full deployments.
Current and future edge AI applications
ZEDEDA, a leader in edge management and orchestration, has released the findings from its inaugural Edge AI Survey – revealing that edge artificial intelligence adoption is rapidly expanding across industries.
The research, conducted by Censuswide, shows that 97 % of CIOs have edge AI either already deployed or on their roadmap, with only 3 % reporting no current plans to implement these technologies.
“ The findings confirm what we’ re seeing across industries – edge AI is no longer just a future consideration but an essential component of digital transformation strategies today,” said Said Ouissal, CEO and founder, ZEDEDA.
“ As a natural evolution of edge computing, edge AI enhances the data processing capabilities already made possible at the edge, enabling organizations to significantly improve customer experience, operational efficiency and security in ways that cloud-only approaches cannot match.”
Customer experience applications currently dominate edge AI implementations, with 80 % of CIOs deploying edge AI for use cases that enhance the customer experience, like retail store operations, display personalization and quality control. Risk management applications follow closely at 77 %, including predictive maintenance, safety compliance, anomaly detection and physical security.
Planned deployments for 2025 – 2026 show a shift in priorities, with cost reduction( 74 %) and risk management( 73 %) leading future implementations. This indicates that organizations increasingly focus on operational efficiencies and risk mitigation after initial customer-facing deployments.
Industry differences are notable, with 93 % of retail CIOs implementing edge AI for customer experience, compared to 80 % across all industries. Manufacturing strongly focuses on process acceleration for future deployments( 82 % vs. 68 % overall), highlighting industry-specific optimization needs.
Multimodal AI leading at the edge
The survey reveals that multimodal AI – which combines speech, text and vision capabilities – is the most commonly deployed AI model at the edge( 60 %) and in the cloud( 59 %). This indicates that organizations are seeking comprehensive AI
Ninety-seven per cent of US CIOs have edge AI on their roadmap as enterprise investments soar
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